Day 21 - June 30th

No travel today!!

We headed to Denali National Park which is six million acres and larger then New Hampshire! It is one of the world’s last great frontiers for wilderness adventure and remains largely wild and unspoiled. It is known for wildlife such as grizzly bears, moose, caribou, fox, wolf and Dall sheep. We toured the park by a shuttle bus that was approx 8 hrs round trip. For the first half of our trip we were in pretty dense fog most of the time, esp. when we got to the visitor center half way through our tour. We were unable to see some of the beauty of the mountains around us, but by the time we left 40 mins later the fog was lifting. We saw several dried up river beds that once used to be filled with water from glaciers. Due to the receding of the glaciers over the past several thousand of years, these rivers are basically dried up, or have some slight trickle of water present. The river beds are filled with gravel that is being used to make roads in the park..
During the first 5 mins of our tour we spotted a moose feeding on the willow trees on the side of the road, very close to the bus. It was the first time I had seen a moose so close up. Wow, they are huge creatures!!
We also saw several caribou during the day and one golden eagle. Walking along side of the road was a fox with a vole(like a mole) in his mouth.The biggest wildlife thrill occurred on our way back when we spotted a lynx in the middle of the road. He was at first sitting like a dog then crouched like he was going to attack as he starred at a pica (like a small groundhog) in some rocks. We watched him for about 5 mins hoping he would make his move, but someone on one of the buses behind us startled him by talking too loudly and he walked away. Although we did not see any grizzly bears, our tour guide told us it was more exciting to see the lynx as they are rarely spotted in the park. At times the bus travelled on the edge of very steep mountains, approx 800 feet high!! That was scary when you looked down. The road was narrow also and there were only certain spots where buses could pass each other. When that happened I looked the other way! Overall it was a very nice day and the weather cleared up!!